EF0 tornado, Amarillo, Texas, June 3, 2023

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. EF186 to 110 mph

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. EF2111 to 135 mph

   Considerable damage. Roofs torn off well-built houses, frame homes shifted on their foundations, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, cars lifted off the ground.

4. EF3136 to 165 mph

   Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

5. EF4166 to 200 mph

   Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

6. EF5over 200 mph

   Incredible damage. Strong frame houses swept off their foundations, car-sized missiles thrown more than 100 meters, steel-reinforced concrete badly damaged, high-rise buildings deformed.

7. Unrated

   The survey recorded a tornado but could not put a number on it, most often because it crossed open country and damaged nothing a rating can be read from.

Rating

EF0

Date

June 3, 2023

Touchdown

7:50 PM CDT (00:50 UTC)

Lifted

7:51 PM CDT (00:51 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.2 miles (0.4 km)

Path width

10 yards (9 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Potter County

Touchdown point

35.187, -101.814

Lift-off point

35.184, -101.811

Record number

2306031850-01

4 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS AMA, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 85 mph.

• Minor damage to the Stars Drive-in Restaurant. Menu signs were damaged, the wiring for the audio system came loose and one of the light fixture was bent. In addition, four to five cars had their windows blown out from debris.
• Estimated end point of tornado based on video.

Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.

Multiple rounds of thunderstorms the 2nd through the 4th brought high winds, flooding, and some landspout tornadoes to the combined Panhandles. June 2nd brought high winds and flooding to both the Oklahoma and Texas Panhandle. The moisture continued into the 3rd and 4th but with slower moving storms and residual outflow boundaries from the 2nd storms produced heavy long lasting rainfall, as well as landspout tornadoes to the TX Panhandle. One landspout did touch down in Amarillo causing some damage. One of the boundaries that helped produce that landspout also caused storms to linger around Amarillo causing some historic flooding with the city having to pump water out of local playa and storm collection lakes well into July.

This tornado started just to the north of the Jiffy Cleaners,|where some tree limbs broke off a few trees. The top half of a|tree snapped and fell alongside the Cleaners building. A rusty air|conditioning unit lifted from the roof of the cleaners and was|tossed into the median of Ross Osage Road. The sign of Cliffside|Coffee Shop was blown out on the south side of the sign. The|tornado crossed the street and appeared to gain a little more|strength as it caused the brick siding of the Toot N Totum gas |station to collapse. The tornado continued across SE 27th Avenue, |where it caused minor damage to the Stars Drive- In and some cars |in the parking lot had their windows blown out from debris. The |tornado appeared to have dissipated in the field behind the Drive-|In. This tornado was documented by multiple people and we are |grateful for their video evidence. Times were estimated based on |video documentation and may be adjusted with further analysis and |information.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

Every warning and watch covering the touchdown point that day, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service products. Lead time is measured from the issue of the warning in force to the touchdown time in the database, both of which were recorded to the minute by different people.

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Marginal Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:37 UTC.

SPC's Day 1 convective outlook as it stood when the tornado began, read at the touchdown point. The same archive is on the radar archive.

The radiosonde launches on either side of the tornado, from the nearest station that was launching then, drawn and analyzed the way Storm Lab does: the same diagram, the same parcel and shear definitions SPC's mesoanalysis uses.

Amarillo - Rick Husband Intl (AMA), 10 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The Amarillo radar (KAMA), 11 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:49 UTC.

Open the radar archive at this moment, over the track

Reflectivity and velocity, decoded from the Level II archive in the browser. Volumes take a few seconds to open the first time.

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2023 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. Tornado counts rise through the record as reporting improved, so a year in the 1950s is not comparable with one today except for the strongest tornadoes, which were always noticed.

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.